User:Lightbreather/Kaffeeklatsch

Léonard Defrance, Femmes buvant le café (1763), dessus de porte Musée d'Ansembourg, Liège

Welcome!

The Kaffeeklatsch is a place for women to get together, hear, and support each other.

If you have signed the Kaffeeklatsch Pledge in good faith, Welcome! - and please proceed.

If you have not signed the pledge, please join or start a discussion on the hostess' talk page.

What is a Kaffeeklatsch?

By 1900 German Hausfrauen (housewives) had established a pleasant custom of their own. Because they weren’t welcome in public coffeehouses, the ladies gathered together in small groups at one another's houses to sip coffee and talk. A mid-afternoon gathering of women thus became to be known as a Kaffeeklatsch- a combination of Kaffee, the term coffee, and Klatsch, or gossip.

Once the coffee habit had become firmly entrenched in German culture, no government bans—and no prohibitions against women in coffeehouses—could destroy Germany’s love of the beverage.

Is it discriminatory?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer:

Without weighing in on the larger question about how to provide safe spaces so that all users are comfortable participating in Wikimedia projects, I wanted to clear up the misunderstanding related to the WMF non-discrimination policy. In WMF Legal's opinion, the non-discrimination policy does not prohibit users from setting up a women-only discussion in their user space, because the policy was passed by the Foundation board to apply to acts taken by the Foundation and Foundation employees, not individual users. Other policies may, of course, apply.[1]

-- Luis Villa, Deputy General Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 February 2015

Please introduce yourself

Please sign your post with four tildes (~~~~).

Hello. I am Lightbreather or "LB". My focus to-date on Wikipedia has been gun control, porn (briefly), and articles to-do with women. I am pretty good at finding sources, and for light work, I like to improve source citations using WP:CS1. Lightbreather (talk) 19:00, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi all! I'm Smirkybec, named for a type of Sindy doll from the 1980s. In general I focus on women's histories, and as I'm from Ireland I have a particular interest in Irish women. I really enjoy the history of science, but I have been drawn into histories around WWI, larger Irish histories and more current science topics. I love a challenge of finding resources and citations to get marginalised histories represented! Smirkybec (talk) 20:48, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcome, Smirkybec. Your post made me think of one of The Cranberries' song Zombie, which I always thought was about a WWI survivor, but which, according to our WP article, is about the 1916 Easter Rising. Hmmm... I am glad to meet you, and always glad to learn something new. Lightbreather (talk) 22:24, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Oh yes, there would be a very long tradition of song writing about 1916, and independence in general, the history of of Ireland WWI is one that is not well represented or even talked about - although that's changing with the centenary! Looking forward to getting to know you and other contributors :) Should mention that I'm involved in the new Wikimedia Community Ireland, and I'm doing a PhD looking at the role of Wikipedia in relation to GLAM organisations. Smirkybec (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I'm LadyofShalott. I've been editing since 2006, and an administrator since 2008. I have a concern with the pledge. It says that transwomen are welcome, but then insists that people identify with she/her pronouns. I am cisgendered myself, but I think that some who may identify as transwomen may prefer gender-neutral pronouns. LadyofShalott 16:59, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcome, LadyofShalott. I share your concern to some degree. I will start a separate discussion and after we get 10 or 12 members, maybe we can take some sort action on tweaking the wording of the pledge to be as inclusive as possible while at the same time assuring (as much as is possible) that the klatsch feels safe... much as one might expect at a spa or a domestic violence shelter. Lightbreather (talk) 19:09, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

But why risk at all making transwomen feel unwelcomed? It seems to me that saying you identify as a woman should be enough. Period. Keeping non-inclusive pronouns as a requirement for discussion here - as it is now - is exclusionary. What point is there in waiting to correct that? LadyofShalott 19:34, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that it will make transwomen feel unwelcome. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I'd like to take it slow. I guess it's worth asking directly: Do you believe that asking a transwoman to identify as "she" for the sake of joining a women-only group on Wikipedia is offensive? (I do mean for this group to be for women only and not just any person who doesn't identify as a man - which isn't exactly the same thing.) I may very well be less educated about this than you, and gender can be a controversial topic, so patience, please, and let's take it slow.

FYI, I started a section below for this discussion, which I'd like to get more viewpoints on. Lightbreather (talk) 20:18, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, the orientations need to be inclusive. Not all are straight or lesbian. Bisexual erasure is a thing, and some women are asexual. We could just say "of any sexual orientation" rather than attempting to list all possibilities. LadyofShalott 19:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done I agree that's an improvement, thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi there. Thanks for creating this. I mostly work on articles related to women's soccer and the Women's football/soccer task force but do get involved in other articles related to women, human rights, and music from time to time along with other random updates I come across. This seems like a great potential project to work on for Women's History Month coming up in March. Hmlarson (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcome, Hmlarson.

Yes, I think a group like this could be useful for women who work on that. Not so much to develop articles, but as a refuge if related discussions in other spaces get overrun by testy men (such as happens at the GGTF-related articles). Lightbreather (talk) 20:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for inviting me. I edit mostly articles on 17th-century art, but also do a lot of random work around museums and cultural heritage. I am probably just as active on Wikidata and Commons than on Wikipedia. I have been involved with watching the Wiki(p/m)edia gendergap and contributing to discussions about it for the past couple of years. Right now I am preparing for the multi-lingual writing challenge on Art & Feminism for the weekend of 7 & 8 March. If you are able I would appreciate some help. I am setting up categories for female painters and creating lists of their works of art, so that people might easily be able to write short articles during the challenge about works of art by women. Until now, the category Category:Paintings mostly contained works by male creators. Less than 3% of all people listed here were women too. Jane (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Welcome, Jane. I might want to help you with a female painter. It would be a nice break from my recent editing.

Would you please read and sign the pledge page? Welcome again - and thanks. Lightbreather (talk) 02:03, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello. I work mostly on building new pages for women, especially in the arts, writing, and architecture. I also work on recruiting new Wikipedia editors from underrepresented communities, including women, and on demystifying it for people who for whatever reason have found it hard to jump in. A few Wikipedians have been very helpful to me, and I hope to return some of that here. Cheers.Alafarge (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Welcome, Alafarge. Lightbreather (talk) 01:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hello. I'm Grrrlriot and I've been on Wikipedia for 6 years. I was inactive here on Wikipedia for 3 years until recently. I created the Feminism Portal here on Wikipedia and edit feminist type of articles. Thanks for inviting me here. I'm glad to be aboard. Grrrlriot (♠ ♣ ♦ ♥ †) 00:49, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Welcome, Grrrlriot. Lightbreather (talk) 01:17, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Wanna talk?

Please go to the klatsch talk page. Lightbreather (talk) 20:17, 14 February 2015 (UTC)